Project: Contact models for simulating granular materials
Description
When simulating the dynamics of solid bodies in contact, one must compute the geometric overlap, determine where contact forces should be applied and in which direction. In addition, when the bodies are not entirely rigid or interpenetrate because of finite time steps, one introduces a contact model.
Most commonly, this is done by point-wise computations involving only the penetration depth or an approximation of. For the case of spheres, this leads to a single contact point along the central line joining the spheres’ centers. By neglecting deformations that would occur with deformable spheres, there is no possibility of computing rolling resistance for instance, as this requires a moment, i.e., forces applied away from central line.
The alternative is to use some variant of the Finite Element Method (FEM) which requires dynamic meshing to create conforming contacting surfaces, and a large amounts of extra variables. Of course, one also looses the smoothness of the surface of the spheres, deformed or not.
This project aims to investigate how to use rigid spherical geometries and planes which are allowed to intersect, in order to compute contact forces with a good level of accuracy. This is to be done by considering overlapping volumes, contacting surfaces, and curves of intersection, and then, a suitable local elasticity model.
Details
- Student
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DRDaniel van Rijswijk
- Supervisor
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Andrei Jalba
- Secondary supervisor
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CSClaude Lacoursière, TU/e, Algoryx Simulation